I am not convinced a protracted legal custody battle is the next step in this story. Rafe will pressure Gabi to co-parent with Will. Everybody else will likely pressure her to do the same except for Nick. I am not sure if Nick has enough influence and manipulation in him to overcome the pushback from Rafe.

If by some chance a courtroom or lawyer assisted custody battle does happen, Salem needs another high profile lawyer to take Gabi's case. EJ would never take Gabi's case. Justin shouldn't take her case either due his son's relationship with the opposing party. As such, bringing in day players to portray the lawyers is about the only plausible scenario here that could maintain any semblance of unbiased and fair representation. If existing characters must portray the lawyers, I want Justin to be bound by a retainer or other act to serve as Gabi's lawyer with Carrie returning to Salem to serve as Will's lawyer. Carrie battling against Rafe would much more interesting than if it were EJ. I do not want EJ anywhere near a possible custody battle. Hopefully this story does not go down that route.

I expect Will to have concerns about Gabi and Nick when he learns about Gabi's role in Melanie's kidnapping, and if Will decided he wants to share custody with Gabi, that would be a problem for Nick, given the way he feels about Will's sexual orientation. I do think Rafe will pressure Gabi to do what he thinks is right, but the problem is that there are going to be several other people with their own ideas of what is right, who will all be pressuring Will, Nick, and Gabi. Will has been all alone, but as soon as the truth comes out, even though he runs the risk of losing Sonny (which I don't think is going to happen) he will now have a lot of support and he can finally be honest about how he really feels and what he wants to do. I don't think Nick will be alone in fending off Rafe. I expect Hope, Maggie, Julie and probably some others to think Nick is being the good guy by stepping up for Gabi. There's great potential in this story for people who normally are on the same side to be pitted against each other, and I hope the writers get it right for once.